This application relates to a gas turbine engine, wherein the size and number of core inlet stator vanes at an upstream end of a compressor section are positioned to minimize icing concerns.
Gas turbine engines are known, and typically include a fan delivering air into a compressor section as core flow, and also to a bypass path. The air entering the compressor section typically passes across inlet stator vanes, and towards a compressor rotor. The air is compressed in the compressor section, delivered into a combustion section, mixed with fuel and ignited. Products of this combustion pass downstream over turbine rotors, driving the rotors to rotate, and in turn drive the compressor and fan sections.
In one traditional type of gas turbine engine, a low pressure turbine drives a low pressure compressor, and a high pressure turbine drives a high pressure compressor. The low pressure turbine typically also drives the fan blade through a low spool. In such engines, the fan blade and low pressure compressor were constrained to rotate at the same speed as the low pressure turbine.
More recently, it has been proposed to incorporate a gear reduction between the low spool and the fan blade such that the fan blade may rotate at a distinct speed relative to the low pressure turbine. Such engines have a gear reduction typically positioned inwardly of a core engine gas flow.
One concern with gas turbine engines when utilized on airplanes is that ice may be passed downstream into the core flow. The ice may accumulate on an outer housing, known as a splitter, which defines an outer periphery of the core flow, and on the stator vanes. When the ice builds up, this is undesirable. The problem becomes particularly acute with a geared turbofan, as the core flow tends to be across a smaller cross-sectional area then in the prior systems.